i know the thishiteis site is running a couple of threads about the forthcoming series coming up but i found the article this morning in the mirror for people to read. car crash tv? you bet ya!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/tm_objectid=17583175%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=big%2dron%2dput%2dme%2don%2dthe%2ddole-name_page.htmlWHEN Ron Atkinson arrived at a club in the past it meant FA Cups, title races and a shot at the big time.
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Atkinson's involvement at Peterborough led to manager Steve Bleasdale quitting
But now it means fireworks and fighting, chaos and confusion, and dressing-room rebellion - as Peterborough manager Steve Bleasdale found out.
A fly-on-the wall TV documentary called Big Ron Manager will reveal just how spectacularly the League Two club blew their promotion bid after the former Manchester United and Aston Villa boss was brought in by his friend and Peterborough chairman Barry Fry in January.
Atkinson and the caretaker manager clashed so much that Bleasdale quit in front of his stunned players and staff 70 minutes before a crucial game with Macclesfield.
Fed-up Bleasdale ended up resigning in the dressing room 70 minutes before a game in April. But the League Two side's fans have never been made fully aware of why he left - and just how badly chairman Barry Fry shattered the club's bid for promotion by bringing in Atkinson and the TV crews.
The fly-on-the-wall series, which begins next Wednesday, will shock football fans with the intensity of the rows, bust-ups and confrontations including this a mass dressing-room brawl after a vital promotion defeat.
Bleasdale, who took Posh into the play-off positions before Atkinson's arrival, is now on the dole. Peterborough eventually finished the season in ninth place, having lost seven of their final 10 games.
Bleasdale told Mirror Sport last night: "I'm a coach who can change teams, change training and change players.
"I have modern ideas - and yet I'm doing nothing. Ron has walked away but there is nothing for me.""
Other jaw-dropping moments in the five-part series include:
<li>DEFENDER Phil Bolland, now at Chester, telling the TV crew: "Nobody knows who is running the place."</li>
<li>ATKINSON and Bleasdale rowing in the dressing room in front of Peterborough's startled players - then in front of Fry, who sides with Atkinson.</li>
<li>A BLISTERING, foul-mouthed, dressing-room bust-up between Bleasdale and defender Sean St Ledger, whose appalling attitude eventually sees him offloaded to Derby.</li>
<li>FRY intervening to tell St Ledger he will be playing after he is axed from the team by Bleasdale.</li>
<li>THE chairman calling Bleasdale into his office and telling him: "It's clear to me that you have no idea what you are doing. I will be picking the team."</li>
<li>A FIGHT in the dressing room between players.</li>
Bleasdale added: "I just can't get my head round why Ron kept challenging my authority in front of the players. I didn't want him in the dressing room. My experience will never leave me and whatever football role awaits me it will be nothing to compare with what I have had to put up with.
"We had had so many meals over which I was persuaded his role would be a watching brief. He told me that if he saw anything to work on, he would advise me in private. But he didn't do that.
"For me, I learned nothing. Ron Atkinson's been a great manager but, no disrespect, what did he teach Stevie Bleasdale? I'm still waiting.
"Yet it got to the stage where, when Ron Atkinson the great manager came into the dressing room, the players were trying to decide whether they all listened to him or to the rookie manager who has just had two defeats."
Bleasdale was initially made to look as though he had left the club in the lurch when he quit in April.
But Posh fans will be shocked when they see the full story unfold and the way he was made to stand aside, humiliated in front of his players, as Fry gives a team talk before that match.
The subject of the documentary was initially intended to be Swindon Town in December 2005.
Atkinson was brought in to the Wiltshire club to perform a similar role alongside Town boss Iffy Onoura. But after just four weeks Onoura pulled the plug on the project, refusing to be undermined.
The Peterborough project then began a week later. Bleasdale added: "I know Iffy well and he had a great escape. He said to me: 'Steve, I don't know how the hell you put up with it. I'm really glad he left our club'."
Blasting Ron's criticisms of the underachieving players, Bleasdale added: "It needed for Ron to take me aside and say, 'Look Steve, this is what I feel about certain players'. Then I would relate it to them. That's what I thought he was coming in for.
"But when he stands up and starts slating the players, then going round and nudging everyone and saying, 'You do this and you do that' what can you do? That's how you lose the dressing room.
"People will see what happened in the boardroom and how difficult it was for me. I distinctly said I didn't want him in the dressing room. Ron probably thought he was helping. But it didn't work."
Fry, having sunk his life savings into the ailing club to keep it afloat, saw Atkinson - with two FA Cups, a League Cup and experience of management at the highest level -as the ideal mentor for Bleasdale.
But Fry undermines his manager from the start by insisting Atkinson had his "100 per cent backing to change things as he sees fit".
Bleasdale added: "My wife Karen thinks the show is going to be a smash hit for other people but it won't be for me.
"She felt I should have gone a long time ago. But she still believes in me and a lot of other people still believe in me too."
BIG RON MANAGER begins next Wednesday, August 23 at 10pm on Sky One.
